Contents

Biography

Hart has been published in various periodicals, including Pro Ecclesia, The Scottish Journal of Theology, First Things, and The New Criterion. He has taught at the University of Virginia, the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Duke Divinity School, and Loyola College in Baltimore, and his specialties are philosophical theology and patristics. He completed his divinity school training at the University of Cambridge, and his graduate training at the University of Virginia. [1]

Quotation

"...the beauty that perdures in the midst of the world's ceaseless becoming excites in the soul a longing for the infinite beauty that it reflects." ("The Mirror of the Infinite: Gregory of Nyssa on the Vestigia Trinitatis," p. 548)

Bibliography

Books

In the Aftermath: Provocations and Laments (2008) ISBN 978-0802845733

The Story of Christianity: An Illustrated History of 2000 Years of the Christian Faith (2007) ISBN 978-1847241405

The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? (2005) ISBN 978-0802829764

The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth (2003) ISBN 978-0802812544

In his book The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth, Hart discusses the language of beauty, the Triune God, and Creation. He states that the Christian understanding of Creation as beauty and gift, as the outward expression of the delight the Trinity has in itself, reveals a vision of reality different from the pagan or fatalist vision of reality. In an effort to explain this latter vision and to elucidate the difference between it and the former, Hart contrasts the music of Richard Wagner (1813-1883), which he cites as an example of the pagan or fatalist vision of reality, with that of J. S. Bach (1685-1750), his example of the Christian vision of reality. Whereas Wagner's music has to end when and how it does, Bach's music contains infinite possibility and could have ended (if he had been immortal) in any number of fashions. Hart adds that Bach's music further demonstrates the Christian vision of reality in how it accounts for dissonance; the music makes room for it, he states, without degenerating into mere discord. [2]